ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has asked the Islamabad High Court (IHC) administration to come up with a detailed reply to the internal audit report about its accounts for the year 2011-13.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk, issued the direction during the hearing of a December 2013 petition filed by Advocate Arif Chaudhry on behalf of Advocate Chaudhry Mohammad Akram, a former vice-president of the IHC bar association. The petition was filed against a number of appointments made in the IHC of which at least two were close relatives of the sitting judges. The appointments were made in a phased manner from 2011 to the end of 2012.

Later, a reply submitted to the apex court by the IHC registrar had explained that the chief justice of the high court opted to fill 19 posts by relaxing the Islamabad High Court Establishment (Conditions of Service) Rules 2011.

“The total strength of the high court is 400 employees and 19 appointments made in relaxation of the rules is not a big figure to be highlighted by anyone,” the report had said.

But in August last year, an internal audit and inspection on the accounts of the IHC 2011-13 by the accountant general of Pakistan revenue (AGPR) noted that not a single appointment in the high court administration was made on merit since its inception in January 2011. Besides, all the appointments whether through fresh recruitment or on deputation, rules and merit criteria were violated, the auditors added.

After the contents of the report were published in the press, the high court administration suspended four of its officers for insubordination and leaking the audit report to the media.

The audit report had also said deputationists in the high court were absorbed in much higher scales without any plausible justification when generally absorptions were made in the same scale or in some special case a maximum of one stage above only.

Also, the procedure of advertising the vacancies and filling them through an open competition was totally ignored in all the appointments, added the auditors.

The petitioner had named 76 individuals, from additional registrars to peons, as respondents and requested the apex court to declare their appointments illegal.

He pleaded that without a legal procedure laid down in the rules, such appointments denied the citizens their right to participate in the selection process, violating a number of apex court judgments.

Such illegal and unlawful appointments are also creating a sense of deprivation in the society raising doubts about the integrity of the appointing authority, the petition alleged, adding not selecting the best as the public servants was a gross breach of public trust and, therefore, an offence against the citizens.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2015

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